Mackey Chandler

A Reluctant Sovereign – published tomorrow

I’ll put it up tonight but it takes some time to propagate through their system. Here’s the cover.
Can’t get link to work. Sorry.

Snippet of Fair Trade sequel

“Does anybody want to chat with me?” Jed asked the assembled Tigers. He hoped some of the snarky flavor of the invitation was retained in translation. The Tiger had overnight to think on how to deal with him. Maybe they learned something.

One of the Tigers stepped forward. He didn’t kneel in submission but he lowered himself with all his legs tucked in close, sphinx like. It wasn’t submission but it sent the message he wasn’t poised to attack.

“We lack understanding of your kind. Going through the translator makes it worse. We know few of his words and he knows few of our words. We do not know who is dominant between your kinds. We have no reason to trust his translation. He claims to fear you and yet he’s still here. Are the People now your slaves?”

“They are not. You had plenty of time and opportunity to learn their language. You were too arrogant to think you’d ever need to know it. You can explain arrogant if you try,” Jed said to the dismayed translator. “Try valued yourselves too high or other variations.”

“If you don’t like speaking through him, I will assign you a human to teach you English. It’s the dominant language of transportation and business on our world. When the People found our world, it was the obvious choice to learn.”

“He asks why you have more than one language and how many you use? I confessed I have no knowledge of that.” He didn’t ask his assigned assistant.

“We have hundreds. Every independent country has at least one. Some have several they acquired over the centuries as they were conquered by successive invaders. Some countries conquered an area and their language and a few customs were the only things they left behind by the time they in turn failed or were conquered. We humans don’t especially like each other and tend to retain our identity over generations and kill outsiders. The last couple of wars we had killed millions and ravaged continents. We’ve been reluctant to repeat that now that a single weapon shot can destroy large cities. We may be mean but we’re not suicidal.”

They talked with the translator a long time before getting back to Jed.

“They doubt your statement about the power of your weapons,” the translator said.

“They will find the demonstration of it convincing if they want to do it the hard way. It’s amusing if they think I need to lie to the likes of them. Do they demean themselves to tell their prey and slaves falsehoods?”

“Are you sane by the standards of your species?” the translator eventually asked.

“We have no agreed standard that holds from one group to another,” Jed said. “Nor does it matter. You have to deal with me or risk how sane the next human you deal with will be. You are going to deal with humans now that we know you exist.”

“Why do you call us Tigers?” Which seemed to be off on a tangent and the translator again ignored his Earth trained counterpart.

“The People who found us called you Tigers in English. Looking at our videos it was the most frightening Earth predator they saw. Here, we brought a fractional data base of Earth knowledge. I’ll show you the creature.”

The pictures of a tiger taking down game got a murmur of appreciation from the crowd. The last shot was of a tiger holding a gazelle by the throat. The photographer zoomed in until all that was visible was the tiger’s frightening eyes, staring at the cinematographer over its bloody muzzle. It was obvious it knew it was being watched.

“They are amazed humans survive on a world with such predators.”

Jed laughed. “Once we invented the pointy stick it was all over for them. They only survive because we’ve set aside territory where they are protected from humans by other humans. They are beautiful and a living history worth preserving. Here, let me show them something else.”

The next video showed children with ice cream cones peering through the bars of a tiger enclosure at a zoo. The next, a circus act where the tamer snapped his whip at a tiger and made it jump through hoops and do tricks. Another still picture showed an ancient Asian man with a weathered face and bright tribal dress leaning on a steel headed spear. A tiger skin robe was draped over his shoulders. The last showed two older gentlemen with brandy snuffers relaxing in a dark paneled English club. Between them and a lit fireplace was an enormous tiger skin rug. The captives were silent at that.

“There are other predators on our planet,” Jed said. “I’ve never seen a wild tiger but where I used to live these are fairly common.”

Jed showed a picture of a hunter posed with a Kodiak bear. The bear’s paw was as big as a serving platter with its claws displayed. The hunter was posed squatting in front of it with a compound bow and several broadhead arrows clamped on a rack so the nature of the weapon was obvious.

“They hold a lottery every year for the privilege of hunting a few,” Jed said. “They control how many can be taken and charge a huge fee so they aren’t made extinct.”

“That’s a muscle powered weapon that throws one of those pointy shafts?” the translator asked Jed.

“Yes, a bow and arrow, but the Tigers didn’t say anything. Are you a mind reader now?”

“I was asking for myself,” he admitted. “Why hunt such a monster with that weapon when I know you have vastly superior?”

“What would be the sport in that?” Jed asked.

The Tiger demanded to know what they were saying. It took a while including extra consultation with the Earth trained subordinate.

“Oddly enough, I don’t understand your last comment at all but the Tigers assured me they do, after I read enough synonyms from our dictionary. They ask if that’s what you would reduce them to, hunting stock?”

“I’d be delighted if I succeeded in preserving them as a species and the cost of it was only a few Tigers and humans hunting each other in the wild. I’m hoping to find terms to do that so others of my species don’t decide they are too much trouble and expense to preserve. The short sighted may decide it makes better sense to burn their worlds bare and exterminate them. I’m a preservationist by philosophy.”

“They are upset you portray yourself as their ally in survival they did not chose. They accuse you enjoyed abusing the medic and want you to know they had to amputate his ruined tail.”

“Oh, boo-hoo. It got their attention. They simply don’t listen without being forced to. They may have never needed allies before. Still, they are awfully damned slow to adapt to a change in necessity. See if you can teach them friends or advocates. Make clear I don’t like them, but they better learn to take any sort of friends where they can find them. They aren’t terribly likable.

“I happen to feel on principle that you don’t destroy what you can never bring back. Plenty of my fellow humans would kill all those tigers or bear I showed without a second thought. I’d find it a loss to walk through the woods and never wonder if one was around the next tree.” Jed smiled. “It adds a delicious uncertainty to your stroll.”

The translator looked at him in horror.

“I think you humans are all insane and it just varies by intensity. The People very, very rarely have those who are addicted to risk because their fear hormones act like a drug. Perhaps you aren’t self-aware of that happening.”

“Oh no. Lots of adrenaline junkies are self-aware,” Jed assured him. “They tend to escalate continually trying to get a bigger thrill. Of course, they die young and spectacularly, but what a ride they enjoy while they are alive!”

The translator just shuddered. That needed no explanation.

“I’m tired of talking today,” Jed decided. “Tell them to decide if they want English instruction. I’ll be back when I can stomach looking at them again.”

He walked out while that was being told and before they could ask more.

Another possible story opening:

Jack’s butt was numb. He stretched and leaned, lifting each cheek without getting up. He felt his coffee cup. It was dead cold. Sixty-eight was too damn old to be putting in ten-hour days, but he was glad of the work. The Second and Greater Depression had wiped out his retirement accounts, even before the previous administration had seized them, or taken them into protective custody to hear them tell it. They were saved in Federal Reserve dollar denominated bonds, so if he cashed them out, they’d only be a tenth of the value in the new United States Greenbacks.

He’d retired briefly, but had to come back to work again if he didn’t accept the settlement on his accounts. He had more in mind thirty hours a week or so, but they seemed to find a lot more for him to do than he’d expected. If he got too busy and unhappy, he realized there were lots of others who would be outright envious of his ability to go back to work.

He’d really have been up the creek if his wife’s life insurance had not been ruled payable at full value in the new notes. He was holding out on taking a settlement, hoping some of the court cases would favor a full payout of his retirement accounts in the new money. A lot of people had signed off on the switch, needing funds to live right now, and accepting a dime on a dollar. He had a little nest egg due to the insurance money, but was very conservative about spending it, after seeing how easily he’d been stripped of almost everything before.

Guys his age usually had trouble finding work, but his age was a benefit with this struggling niche plastics company. His experience with their obsolete computer and older AutoCAD software, let them suck a little more use out of it. The youngsters who came by his cube looked in horror at the six-year-old box. It might be obsolete, but it could easily handle files for the relatively simple plastic parts they were contracted to tool and produce.
If you wanted five million cheap, crappy parts with flash and uncertain material specs, the job was going to Malaysia or Vietnam. If you needed five hundred parts in virgin material, and really needed the dimensions to resemble spec, then Midwestern Molding was the company to shoot your job.

He’d have been delighted to have this computer and its huge high-definition screen twenty years ago. He started out years ago with NASA on a machine that you could instruct to do an operation, like rotate a part, go use the bathroom, refresh your coffee, say hello to your work mates in the coffee room, and still be back at your desk before it was done.

There were five job files waiting for him. None was labeled hot by some miracle, so he skipped down to the third. That file was smaller, perhaps he could finish it off by the end of tomorrow, and have a clean wrap-up for the weekend.

The screen showed a standard three view line drawing print with details, and a 3D rendering rotating in separate window. Jack couldn’t help the big smile that came to his face. It was a long time ago, but you don’t forget a part once you’ve gotten every detail about it in your mind, and designed a tool to make it. He’d worked with this part when he was at NASA. It was a space suit visor.

He looked at the revisions list, and was unsurprised to see it called out a different material. They’d done a lot with plastics since he was a green NASA nerd. The material it called for was stronger and more heat resistant than the original Lexan. The revisions included anti-reflective coating and sapphire on the inside but deep bonded diamond film on the outside. That was a whole new technology they hadn’t dreamed of back then. The gold film was deleted so they must be using separate flip down sun filters and shades.
The seal groove was modified. Likely the seal was new up-to-date material too. There was still room for ejector pins outside the seal groove so this tool as going to practically design itself since he’d done one before. It needed a lot of diamond polishing on the mold to produce the clean optical surfaces. That wasn’t going to be cheap. It was still a highly skilled hand craft, that a robot couldn’t do.

Jack looked at the corner to see who was having it made. Tangent Fabrication. He’d never heard of them but he’d been out of the aerospace game for years. Then his eye caught the part name: Face Shield / Motorcycle Helmet.
“Bullshit!” he said out loud. Then he looked over his shoulders. Sudden paranoia made him want to keep this to himself until he understood why. No way in hell was this for a motorcycle helmet, so what did it mean? Why would anyone make an obsolete space suit part, and lie about what it was?

Jack was so agitated he had to get up – taking his coffee mug and going for a fresh one. The little bit of coffee left was old and burnt. If he made a new pot at 3:30 people would complain about the waste. The price of coffee was out of sight. He just rinsed the mug out and got water from the cooler.
By the time he walked back and sat at his station he was calm again. It was even starting to make a little sense to him. If you needed space suits quickly on the cheap, most NASA research and data was in the public domain. The basic design was pretty good, not like the first suit they used for Mercury which was basically a high-altitude aircraft suit. It was far better than the Apollo suits or even the very early Shuttle suits. Modernize the materials and the basic design was damn decent. But who the hell needed space suits, and wanted to keep it secret?

He wrote down Tangent Fabrication, the address, and print number on a Post-it note. He considered putting the CAD file on his key ring drive and decided against it. He wasn’t sure the network administrator wouldn’t see the download. They didn’t run a high security shop. Most of their work was appliance parts and high-end toys. Anybody could reverse engineer them by buying the product and measuring it. But they might be watching his activity to keep track of his productivity.

He had a funny feeling about this. It failed the sniff test and he intended to find out why. In fact, he had a vacation penciled in for next month. It would be worth missing a little fishing time to see what Tangent Fabrication looked like. It was north of Sacramento, along the route he’d be going anyway. He wrote down the revisions on the Post-it and put it in his wallet. Then he pulled a standard base out of the D-M-E catalog and started designing the tool. This was the most interesting thing that had happened to him in years. In that way it wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

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